This exciting discovery came during a case study of a 34-year-old woman who was experiencing recurrent squamous cell carcinoma of the skin on her forehead, despite undergoing immunotherapy and multiple surgeries.
Genetic analysis showed for the first time that the beta-HPV virus had already integrated into the tumor's DNA, where it was producing viral proteins that helped the cancer grow and spread.
According to Andrea Lesko, an immunologist at the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases: "This suggests that there are more people with aggressive forms of skin cancer who have a compromised immune system and could benefit from immunotherapies."
The patient in the study suffered from a genetic immune disorder that prevented her T cells from attacking the virus, allowing it to invade her skin cells and stimulate cancer formation.
After the true cause of her condition was discovered, the patient received a bone marrow stem cell transplant to replace her defective T cells with healthy ones. This treatment achieved remarkable results, completely eradicating the aggressive skin cancer and resolving all other health problems associated with the viral infection. Most miraculously, these positive results persisted throughout the three-year follow-up period, without any relapse or recurrence of the disease.
These findings do not diminish the role of ultraviolet radiation as a major cause of skin cancer, but they do reveal that other factors contribute. In rare cases like this, normally benign viruses can have devastating effects on people with weakened immune systems.
Hope comes from progress made against diseases associated with this virus, as widespread vaccination against Alpha-HPV has led to a sharp decline in deaths from cervical and throat cancers.
Lesko concludes: "This discovery could completely change the way we think about the development, and therefore the treatment, of cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma in people with health conditions that impair immune system function."
This study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, is an important addition to the scientific knowledge in the development of targeted and personalized cancer treatments.